This is Scientific American 60 Second Science.

I'm Christopher in D'Artata. Got a minute?

Saturn's largest moon, Titan, has a thick atmosphere, clouds, complex organic molecules. NASA has called it one of the most earth-like

worlds we've found to date, with one glaring exception.

It's awfully cold down there. It's about 94 degrees Kelvin, which means that water would be a rock.

Paulette Clancy, a chemical engineer at Cornell University.

At temperatures that cold, minus 290 degrees Fahrenheit,

one of the most basic biological structures,

the cell membrane, can't exist.

Because to form, the oily membranes depend on the presence of liquid water.

That said, Titan does have plenty of liquid to go around, but it's liquid methane.

So Clancy and her colleagues use computer models to determine whether any molecules on

Titan might mimic the membrane-forming compounds here on Earth.

Based on a catalog of organics observed by NASA's Cassini mission, they found a candidate, a

Crillo nitrial. Its internal electrical charge distribution would allow it to

self-assemble into membranes, just like phospholipids do here on Earth. It's similarly flexible and stable, and there's

a lot of it on Titan. The findings are in the journal Science Advances. Of course, just because a cell membrane could form does not mean it will.

An actual life is a good deal more complicated than just a membrane.

Still Clancy says we might do well to expand the search for life beyond just places with liquid water.

I think we tend to look for things that we know and understand.

If we were more broad-minded, we might find different kinds of life

elsewhere. And maybe that will be fascinating too.

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